Spring is in the air, summer is around the corner, and the world’s best annual T20 league is about to kick-off once again. The Indian Premier League, now entering its 8th year, is set to be more action packed than ever: the World Cup is over, we’ve had a fresh round of player auctions, and there is more sponsorship and prize money than ever before.

There’s a lot of cricket to be played before 24th May, and there have been a number of comings and goings throughout the league. If you want to keep tabs on each game, join a fantasy league, follow your heroes on Twitter and watch what they eat via Instagram, then you’ve come to the right place. There’s more at stake than ever, and MakeUseOf have got you covered.

The official site of the IPL is an excellent place to start. Once the league commences you’ll be able to watch each and every game free through the site, giving you unprecedented access to the best of the league action.

Not only that, but the site’s Video section contains highlights of almost every game played over the past 7 years, meaning you can relive last year’s awesome finale, or the nail-biting finishes throughout the 2012 season.

Finally, the IPLT20 site is one of the major hubs for the league. It’s not only videos – there are schedules, photos, team rundowns, venue explorations, and of course, mountains of stats.

IPL on YouTube

Another awesome resource for matches past, with a plethora of team videos to help raise your anticipation level. Each team featured in the IPL has its own YouTube channel, and most of them regularly post training videos, in-depth player interviews, interviews with the usually unseen and unheard coaching staff, and plenty more.

Outside the official team channels, you should take a look at the #IndianPremierLeague video selection. It’s absolutely massive and features old adverts, amazing IPL moments, and interviews with IPL fans from around the world. The gocricket channel is another IPL gem, again featuring thousands of highlights, team interviews, and individual player “best of” moments.

Outside YouTube

If you leave the confines of YouTube, you can find a massive amount of IPL video content on Dailymotion, featuring game highlights and interviews en masse.

StarSports is another handy site. It features the full IPL schedule live, and at the moment is offering a run down on individual players who’ll likely influence the outcome of the IPL come the end of May, as well as a feature on potential unsung heroes.

Live on TV

While this is an article dedicated to digitally imbibing the IPL, we feel it prudent to inform you of your offline viewing choices. This list of current IPL broadcasters isn’t comprehensive, but does cover most countries where the IPL has some following.

Follow Your Heroes

The bounty of globalized digitization and social media enterprise is instantaneous connection with our sporting heroes. You no longer have to spend hours waiting outside the locker room waiting for a tantalizing glimpse of the best of the best – you can just stalk their Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram accounts.

There are several other nations represented in the Indian Premier League this year, but these nationalities form the majority – aside from England, without a single player this year…roll on WC2019 England?

Facebook

Check the Official IPL Facebook page for score updates, interviews, team news, coaching advice and interviews, and a whole lot more. It has over 12,000,000 likes, so you’re bound to find someone you agree with – or not, as the case may be.

Build a Community

Yes, I’m sure building a community isn’t exactly what you want from the IPL – but it can be done. Just think: there are literally billions of people around the world watching, engaging with, loving the Indian Premier League – couldn’t you all love it together?

Fantasy Leagues

One of the easiest and most immersive IPL experiences you can enjoy as part of a wider community is by competing in one of the myriad IPL Fantasy Leagues. The official IPLT20 hub has its own fantasy league section. You can chose a name, motto, logo, and of course your best attempt at a league winning team handpicked from each of the current franchises.

This officially sponsored fantasy league8 Android Apps Every Sports Lover Needs8 Android Apps Every Sports Lover NeedsIf you love sports and have an Android phone or tablet, you need these apps!Read More comes with a few added bonuses, too. If your IPL fantasy team is absolutely ravaging the league table there is a chance you’ll feature during one of the games – so choose your team name wisely! The overall winner of the IPL Fantasy League will win an Official Signed Team Jersey, a Special Cricket Bat signed by players of the winning team, plus a massive hamper stuffed full of IPL goodies.

/r/ipl and /r/cricket

The Indian Premier League has its own subreddit. To my knowledge it isn’t moderated by any direct affiliate of the IPL, and there are only some 200-odd subscribers. As the IPL is very clearly upon us the subreddit is becoming busy with new videos, interviews, and opinions threads appearing each day.

/r/cricket is the well-established big brother to its IPL specific counterpart. With over 20,000 subscribers the subreddit has a constant flow of cricketing information, media, and debate, though it isn’t all IPL focused. This is slowly changing as WC2015 finishes and the world looks to the next big tournament.

On the Go

Now where would be with all this digital media if we couldn’t access it all on the go. Well, nowhere, that’s for sure. The tournament organizers have released an official IPL app for each of the major mobile platforms: iPhone, Android, and Windows Phones, with an additional feature for feature phones.

That`s very very resourceful. We have also launched a unique IPL app for android called Cricly. Cricly turns your lockscreen into live scorecard so you dont have to open an app everytime you want to check the score. I would love your opinion on it.

Hey Jawwad - cool little IPL tool. Be good if you could integrate it fully with the Android Lock screen so it doesn't jump between the two, but I realise that is more time consuming. Perhaps in a later iteration of the app. I also saw the full screen ad appear a couple of times - might want to work on some less obtrusive ads when it is obscuring the lock screen, people get funny about that.

I've been in India the past two months and have been amazed by just how big cricket is here. Everyone sitting on the train streaming to their phones, practicing in their gardens. Can't say I know anything at all about cricket really, but to see how it impacts a country so positively is great, as opposed to how soccer/football is little more than a blight for the UK society...